Where Should You Save Your Data?

It seems every internet giant is pushing its cloud storage now. Most have a certain amount of free cloud storage. Hosting companies are offering to host in the cloud. Google has introduced notebook ‘computers’ that use the cloud for everything.

Why not use a hard drive?

Do not let the tag of Cloud fool you – all of your information is still on a hard drive. It would be more appropriately called “our hard drive instead of yours”. The term cloud simply means you can easily access it from any internet connection. It may be stored on redundant servers but in the end it is all just on a hard drive somewhere- one substantially bigger than your own.

There are some advantages to storing files on a Cloud drive.
1.       Automatic back-ups of important files
2.       Easy access to files from any computer
3.       Access with mobile devices and sharing between devices
4.       Protects against hard drive failure on your computer
5.       Protects against stolen laptop or lost/stolen smart phones

These being the reasons why every company is telling you to use their cloud drive and they are good ones. Most make it very easy. Google gives you 6GB of cloud drive with a Gmail account. Windows sets up your ‘SkyDrive’ with your Microsoft account and the Office 2013 tries to save to it by default. Hundreds of companies changed their service name from ‘online data storage and back-up’ to ‘Cloud storage service’. The question you should ask is why are the big companies offering you this free storage?

The first is simple economics. Google offers 6 GB of free storage. My computer has a 1TB hard drive. If I want to actually back up my whole drive I will need to buy a lot more space. The presumption is I will get used to using it and the easy back-up and simply upgrade to a paid plan. This does not change any of the potential benefits so there is nothing wrong with the premise.

The issue to be considered is the alternative other use hidden in the EULA (End User License Agreement). If anybody actually read these you would see that almost universally the big internet companies reserve the right to use information collected from data you send to the cloud as they see fit. Exact wording varies but you can be sure they are not saying they will not look at or read the data you store there.

They use the same processes to comb all the data people store on their ‘cloud’ to add profile information and use that for targeting advertisements and marketing. By using Big Data processing and analytics they change what you find in searches and what advertisements you see. The information is also used to present special offers to certain people and not to others based on buying habits and collected profile data.

Cloud storage offers many conveniences. Just do not make the mistake of assuming it is a ‘free benefit’.